THE JOURNAL OF LUCAS BROWN. PART 9

I don’t know how, as me even writing these words on this paper discredits what my eyes are telling me, but the book he is still sitting there reading is my journal.

And so, with these words ends the Journal of Lucas Brown.

I promised myself that I had read those words for the last time and threw the journal into the fire. I watched as the flames danced over its disintegrating corpse until it turned to dust, inconsequential ashes that would never mean anything again.

But then, just as I began to truly believe I was capable of forgetting my obsession, just when I was convincing myself that I no longer felt the itch that could not be scratched I found something.

A small black journal on my pillow in my new home, identical in every way to the one I had destroyed.

I had made copies of the original journal and sent them to everyone I could think of. Doctors, lecturers, psychologists and many more in the hope that someone could help me explain the bizarre world it described. Until then, until someone could resolve its meaning clearly, I had promised I would not give it another thought.

No word ever came from anyone.

But now, inexplicably it is back here, back in my room. I pick it up and sit at the end of my bed. I feel its familiar contours in my hands, the smooth leather of the cover grating against my skin in the same way it always did. I flick through its pages, take in the stale smell and noticing the scrawls that are as vivid in my mind as they are on the parchment.

I keep thinking I can hear something, but it sounds like it is inside my head rather than anywhere around me, like some kind of internal call, faint and muffled and audible in a way I can’t explain.

I have also started hearing a distant thudding. I thought it might be my heart pounding but it sounds so much more hollow than that. Could it be my heart? With all that has happened, I realise that I have somehow forgotten what a beating heart sounds like. I close my eyes and try to imagine it, to conjure the sound from within me, to focus on what must be pulsating within me but I can’t find it.

For some reason I’m compelled to look over at the far wall.

My vision fails me. Right in the middle of the white square is a foggy patch of what looks like black smog, preventing me from seeing what is behind it. I rub at my eyes with my knuckles hoping that this vision is some sort of temporary biological anomaly.

Nothing changes

I walk over and stare straight at it. It floats there with a dream like quality, at once appearing completely real and a complete fabrication of the mind.

I reach out and touch it.

It rushes into me like a current of electricity, fizzing up my arm and straight into my chest. I close my eyes. To my surprise it is not cold or uncomfortable, it fills me with a warmth that feels restorative, as if it is giving me something back, something taken from me a long time ago and never retrieved until now.

Then, just as I shed a tear at the joy of this feeling, the feeling of being complete again, it is gone.

I open my eyes and look down.

The black cloud has gone, showing the wall behind it. A cavity has been made, dust and pieces of brick litter the floor below it. I kneel down and peer into the hole.

Through it I see a man, his eyes and mouth are visible, his lips are moving frantically as if shouting but I hear no sound. I do not recognise him.

I hear a great fizzing in my ears followed by a sharp pop.

‘Hello’ the man screams

‘Yes, I can hear you, I can see you.’ I reply, putting my face as close to the wall as possible.

Oddly enough the man does not question my response.

‘You have to help me’ he continues, his voice cracking with desperation ‘I’m trapped in this room’

I then realise that the wall through which he is speaking has nothing beyond it. I am on the second floor and outside that wall should only be air, space.

‘I don’t understand’ I mumble

He doesn’t need to say it, I can hear it in his voice that he is as confused by the situation as I am.

‘Please help’ he pleads

‘Ok, were going to get you out of there’ I say, trying to sooth my voice down into a comforting decibel ‘What’s your name?’ I ask

‘Lucas’ he replies

My face sinks in disbelief, I feel sick.

‘Lucas Brown?’

‘How did you know that, who are you?’

I go to answer him, my name is on the tip of my tongue but it won’t go any further. I try to spit it out, to conjure what should be the simplest answer but it will not come. I am silent a moment while I contemplate my hesitation.

‘I have absolutely no idea what my name is’ I say.

Then everything is engulfed by a piercing white light.